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Information on Old Computers?

Posted by Cliff on from the do-you-know-your-computer-history dept.

sj12fn asks: "I am working on a Computer Family Tree. It's going to include every OS ever made, every piece of hardware ever produced, every computer language ever written, and every standard ever published. What I'm here to ask is if anyone out there in the Slashdot crew has any useful info for us to use." That's a pretty tall order, but it sounds like a worthwhile project, if only from a historic point of view. It looks like the recent question on the first computer OS will get more use than expected.

3 of 9 comments (clear)

  1. Don't forget the Manchester Baby by zero-one · · Score: 2
    American historians typically forget the Manchester computer which (arguably) executed the first ever stored program on June 21st 1948.

    For some info see this site or visit the The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry where you can see the rebuilt computer in action (although there does not appear to be that much on the museum's web site). There is also an emulator available but I can't find a link for that right now.

  2. Source of Computer History by martyb · · Score: 2

    I'm a former owner of an Ohio Scientific Inc. Challenger 4P. [1] Didn't see it in this article's history, so went looking for some links and found a treasure trove of computer history on a site in New Zealand. Check out this query on Google where you can try and reach the original site (I kept getting timeout errors) or access the cached pages on Google.

    [1] When I first showed this computer to my girlfriend at the time, she saw the big letters "OSI" on the front of it, and her mouth just dropped open and her eyes got as big as they could be. I could tell she was VERY IMPRESSED. This was around 1982, and since very few people had personal computers, then, I understood her amazement. That is, until she explained that she thought I was involved with the ultra-secret government agency "Office of Scientific Intelligence" which was featured on the then-popular TV show "The Six-Million Dollar Man"!

  3. The Roots of DOS by Cy+Guy · · Score: 2

    Extensive interview with Tim Paterson author of the Quick and Dirty OS for the 8086 (QDOS-86) the OS MS bought from Seattle Computer to use on the orginal IBM PC.

    Previously, Paterson also had done the first port of MS-Basic to the 8086 platform.

    The 1983 article is both amusing and sad since the guy went back to Seattle Computer after MS-DOS 1.1 was released, and says how happy he was to get a director position there. I expect he'd be worth Billions now had he stayed with MS.

    --
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